Air Pollution From Farms

Smokestacks are easy targets for pollution stories, and air pollution is responsible for hundreds of thousands of deaths worldwide. Farming is just as bad, and in some regions, worse. Ammonia from farming is also pollution and is responsible for about one million deaths each year.

“The United States, with 54,905 deaths in 2010 from soot and smog, ranks seventh highest for air pollution deaths. What’s unusual is that the study says that agriculture caused 16,221 of those deaths, second only to 16,929 deaths blamed on power plants.”

The upside is that, while curtailing industrial pollution usually raises costs, curtailing agricultural pollution frequently requires more efficient operations which actually reduce costs. The incentives exist. The actions can be taken.